Social Identity, Personality & Gender

When studying how personality develops, we cannot ignore the role that sex and gender may play nor can we overlook the biological factors that may influence and differentiate male and female behaviors. Determining whether gender roles influence personality and social identity or vice versa may be difficult, but we know that gender roles vary greatly from culture to culture. It is also recognized that every culture has individuals who are transgenders?people who do not fall neatly within the proscribed male and female categories. Western cultures prefer to think exclusively in male and female gender roles, but many other cultures have created a "third gender" or even a "fourth gender" in which to place these individuals. As individuals, we not only need to know who we are but also how we fit in and belong to the culture we were born into. Sometimes it gets complicated.